Pulaski Skyway tour 4-7-14State transportation officials gave a tour of the underside of the Pulaski Skyway on April 7, 2014 to show how badly corroded the roadway is.

State transportation officials today hosted a tour of the northern end of the Pulaski Skyway to show the effects of 82 years of corrosion on the state-owned bridge.

An up-close look at the condition of the 3.5-mile bridge shows why state Department of Transportation officials have taken the unprecedented step of putting the northbound lanes of the bridge out of commission for two years starting Saturday, April 12.

Horizontal structural beams are so corroded they are dotted with gaping holes, and at some points the steel is as thin as a sheet of paper.

“It’s like a wafer cookie,” said state Transportation Commissioner Jim Simpson as he stood on the platform of a lift truck underneath the Skyway near Tonnelle Avenue in Jersey City. “I can peel away the steel.”

He added: "The structural integrity is gone."

DOT officials today stressed that the bridge is safe for drivers … for now. Temporary steel support beams were put in place over the course of the last year while the DOT planned the roughly $450 million construction project that will lead to a new bridge deck for the aging span.

The DOT has also set up monitors along the Skyway to alert crews to any movement or stress that Simpson compared to an EKG monitoring a heart.

But a peek at the deterioration of the bridge’s structural supports will likely unnerve drivers who use it every day.

“It’s a scary sight,” said Rick Hammer, an assistant state transportation commissioner.

The widespread corrosion was hidden for decades. When the Skyway was constructed, the horizontal support beams were embedded in concrete to protect the beams from the elements. But water and salt found their way onto the beams through "expansion joints" that keep the roadway from buckling.

Crews first noticed the corrosion in either 2010 or 2011, according to Hammer, when they were connecting a new ramp from the Tonnelle Circle to the Skyway and first saw the damage.

Simpson waved off any notion that the Skyway repairs could wait or that construction could be done just on nights or weekends.

"This bridge has to be dealt with now," he said, adding that there have been more than 600 bridge failures in the nation over the last two decades.

"This one's not going to be one of them," he said.

DOT spokesman Stephen Schapiro said the bridge is under "constant
inspection," but the concrete encasing some of the structural supports
kept inspectors from seeing any evidence of deterioration. Schapiro noted that not all of the structural beams are corroded.

Pulaski Skyway tour #2 4-7-14State transportation officials gave a tour of the underside of the Pulaski Skyway on April 7, 2014 to show how badly corroded the roadway is.